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Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora
A field guide to Pandora—the mesmerizing world of James Cameron's Avatar.
Four years in the making—and 15 years since its conception—Avatar is a live action film with a new generation of special effects, delivering a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.
In Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora we are introduced to Pandora—a pristine and beautiful moon in a distant solar system—its exotic ecosystems, and the indigenous race called the Na'vi. By piecing together photographs, scientific field notes, and research data, citizens on Earth have collected the information in this field guide as a way to highlight the lessons Pandora can teach the people of Earth, who have struggled to survive as their planet's critical resources are depleted.
Though Pandora has proven to be an exceedingly profitable source of natural resources, the environment—from its gravity-defying floating mountains to the small but venomous hellfire wasps and the gigantic carnivorous thanator—poses continual dangers to RDA. Catalogued with unparalleled precision and access, this field guide provides highly detailed descriptions of the unique creatures and plants found on Pandora, the culture, language, and physiology of the native population, as well as RDA technology and weapons.
Eager to save the Earth, the activists have culled this information in hopes to expose the corporate greed and disregard for the native inhabitants and their environment that governs RDA's presence on the foreign moon.
This is the evidence in their case to save Pandora—and themselves.
Four years in the making—and 15 years since its conception—Avatar is a live action film with a new generation of special effects, delivering a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.
In Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora we are introduced to Pandora—a pristine and beautiful moon in a distant solar system—its exotic ecosystems, and the indigenous race called the Na'vi. By piecing together photographs, scientific field notes, and research data, citizens on Earth have collected the information in this field guide as a way to highlight the lessons Pandora can teach the people of Earth, who have struggled to survive as their planet's critical resources are depleted.
Though Pandora has proven to be an exceedingly profitable source of natural resources, the environment—from its gravity-defying floating mountains to the small but venomous hellfire wasps and the gigantic carnivorous thanator—poses continual dangers to RDA. Catalogued with unparalleled precision and access, this field guide provides highly detailed descriptions of the unique creatures and plants found on Pandora, the culture, language, and physiology of the native population, as well as RDA technology and weapons.
Eager to save the Earth, the activists have culled this information in hopes to expose the corporate greed and disregard for the native inhabitants and their environment that governs RDA's presence on the foreign moon.
This is the evidence in their case to save Pandora—and themselves.
206 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
August 31, 2016
If you’re a fan of “Avatar” movie this is definitely something for you. It has all the extra information about this fantastic world you might need. Including pictures
May 25, 2019
Ne znam u koju kategoriju ovo staviti. A onog koji je napisao "vodić" bih zadavila.
May 6, 2018
Una guía de todos los elementos de Avatar al estilo de la que existe de otros universos como el de Star Wars. Una muestra mas del potencial que tenía este film de convertirse en un fenómeno cultural que por una razón u otra no fue.
En todo caso es un gran libro para fanáticos del film que nos da datos tan "relevantes" como el tipo de motores que usan los vehículos de la RDA, la forma en que se reproduce la flora del continente o los métodos de creación de instrumentos musicales de los Na'vi.
Algo curioso es que no simplemente se limita a contarnos estas cosas, sino que lleva una especie de narrativa sobre un grupo rebelde en la tierra que mira con esperanza hacia Pandora como fuente de una revolución. Aunque pretende llamar la atención sobre la destrucción ecológica y descontento social del planeta la verdad es que da la impresión de ser un rant de twitter de un "activista de teclado" fascinado por una cultura que nunca ha conocido. Da un poco de vergüenza pero es facil de ignorar para quienes solo quieren descubrir detalles sobre Pandora y la cultura Na'vi. Ah! e incluye in diccionario Na'vi / Español!
En todo caso es un gran libro para fanáticos del film que nos da datos tan "relevantes" como el tipo de motores que usan los vehículos de la RDA, la forma en que se reproduce la flora del continente o los métodos de creación de instrumentos musicales de los Na'vi.
Algo curioso es que no simplemente se limita a contarnos estas cosas, sino que lleva una especie de narrativa sobre un grupo rebelde en la tierra que mira con esperanza hacia Pandora como fuente de una revolución. Aunque pretende llamar la atención sobre la destrucción ecológica y descontento social del planeta la verdad es que da la impresión de ser un rant de twitter de un "activista de teclado" fascinado por una cultura que nunca ha conocido. Da un poco de vergüenza pero es facil de ignorar para quienes solo quieren descubrir detalles sobre Pandora y la cultura Na'vi. Ah! e incluye in diccionario Na'vi / Español!
November 22, 2010
This book was incredibly poor. Everything about it was shoddy: poor science, poor writing, poor design. The absolute worst part of the book was the "handwritten" notes from the "activists" behind the book. They are so histrionic and over the top, and read like they're written by a teenager who's into "fighting the power, man". Having this as the basis of the book (An Activist's Guide) was a huge mistake. This book would have worked a lot better as a simple field guide/scientific manual to Pandora, perhaps written by Dr Grace Augustine.
The science was poorly researched and a lot of it didn't make sense, from misunderstanding basic biological concepts, to pure physics babble. James Cameron obviously had a lot of good ideas but it seems like the marketing division at 20th Century Fox threw the shooting script at the writers of this book and told them to find vaguely scientific reasons for everything. The acknowledgements say scientists were involved with this book, but it must have been at a very cursory level. For this reason I really look forward to Stephen Baxter's forthcoming "The Science of Avatar", which will hopefully explore things in a much more professional manner.
Somethings came across as really weird to me. For example, the length of some piece of equipment was given as 1889.76 millimeters. Really? They need to be that specific? It's ridiculous, and obviously an artefact of converting from inches. I can't believe it was left unchecked during editing.
The use of concept art was good but it was often repeated, and they included mostly early concept art, showing that this book was being put together way before the film neared completion. It would have benefitted from the use of movie stills. The overall design of the book, with crumpled page backgrounds and "handwriting" fonts for the notes was absolutely crap. Just terrible to look at. Fire the designer.
The best sections were on the Na'vi culture, because here the writers could make up whatever they wanted and have it sound plausible. These sections were really short though, and marred by more "activist" whining. The worst sections were the plants - all the fictional plants are similar to one another, and the 40 pages of flora were very dryly written. It got dull fast. The weapons/vehicles section at the end was well written enough but I skimmed it because it doesn't interest me that much.
Ugh, this book could have been so much better if it had been thoroughly researched, better designed, and the whole "activism" pretense was dropped. My verdict: save your money for "The Science of Avatar".
The science was poorly researched and a lot of it didn't make sense, from misunderstanding basic biological concepts, to pure physics babble. James Cameron obviously had a lot of good ideas but it seems like the marketing division at 20th Century Fox threw the shooting script at the writers of this book and told them to find vaguely scientific reasons for everything. The acknowledgements say scientists were involved with this book, but it must have been at a very cursory level. For this reason I really look forward to Stephen Baxter's forthcoming "The Science of Avatar", which will hopefully explore things in a much more professional manner.
Somethings came across as really weird to me. For example, the length of some piece of equipment was given as 1889.76 millimeters. Really? They need to be that specific? It's ridiculous, and obviously an artefact of converting from inches. I can't believe it was left unchecked during editing.
The use of concept art was good but it was often repeated, and they included mostly early concept art, showing that this book was being put together way before the film neared completion. It would have benefitted from the use of movie stills. The overall design of the book, with crumpled page backgrounds and "handwriting" fonts for the notes was absolutely crap. Just terrible to look at. Fire the designer.
The best sections were on the Na'vi culture, because here the writers could make up whatever they wanted and have it sound plausible. These sections were really short though, and marred by more "activist" whining. The worst sections were the plants - all the fictional plants are similar to one another, and the 40 pages of flora were very dryly written. It got dull fast. The weapons/vehicles section at the end was well written enough but I skimmed it because it doesn't interest me that much.
Ugh, this book could have been so much better if it had been thoroughly researched, better designed, and the whole "activism" pretense was dropped. My verdict: save your money for "The Science of Avatar".
January 26, 2016
The book really accomplishes the goal of bringing us the world of Avatar and all the animals, plants and tools of the movie. Yet... the images used are pre post-production and that is what makes the book almost perfect. Some of the images are poor in detail and they should have gone either for the sketch style illustration or 3D rendered objects in full detail. This way it feels like it was a rushed production and is never good...
Still it is a good buy for the price. I would recomend it if you really liked Pandora (even if you didn't like the movie).
Still it is a good buy for the price. I would recomend it if you really liked Pandora (even if you didn't like the movie).
January 11, 2026
This book did nothing to soothe me extremely complex range of feelings about the Avatar universe and films, but did at least allow me to experience them with more granularity
The setting goes to wild extremes to maintain a vision of the RDA as an almost laughably and pointlessly malignant force; they are apparently supressing research into synthetic Unobtanium purely so they can continue the hideously expensive task of mining it from Pandora, a whole star-system away, the RDA elite is bringing home alien fish and flowers as high-status luxury objects while also researching the possibilities of Pandoran flora in bio-reclamation to rescue earths biosphere from pollution, while also for some reason, repressing the same research.
The vast array of Pandora flora with possible bio-reclamation properties does strongly tilt me towards my 'Pandoran Invasion of Earth' theory, in which the Avatar series ends with Earth hosting varied forms of altered Pandoran life which ends up uniting into their own 'Eywa' entity.
All in all an excellent, and impressive, example of detailed (relatively) hard sci-fi worldbuilding - the enormous focus dedicated to Na'vi textiles, tools and crafts is impressive. It still sounds kind of boring to be a Na'vi though - mainly you just hunter-gather and tell stories of Ey'wa and the Balance?
I am not sure Hexipedal limbs make real sense on any of these creatures but if they are there, then surely the Na'vi should also be six-titted Hexipedes? Hopefully someone online has done some impressions of this.
A metatextual 'pleasure' of these films for me has always been the abhorrence and hatred for corporatism, militarism and technology of the _story_, combined with the obvious and intense adoration of these things on the part of the creators of the imagined world, it reminds me a lot of the alleged letter Milton received half way through the publication of Paradise Lost, from some country Squire; "I'm not sure who this Lucifer fellow is, but by gad I hope he wins." The 'Activist Survival Guide' sits right in the pressure crack of these ideas - its almost calling out for some Cyberpunk post-future film to be made about Pro-pandoran Biohackers doing shenanigans on Earth.
Superluminal communications and an apparent 'psionic' element to the Avatar link are interesting, almost the only soft science elements of this hard sci-fi world.
O and the 'Slinger' is some lovely creature-creation.
The setting goes to wild extremes to maintain a vision of the RDA as an almost laughably and pointlessly malignant force; they are apparently supressing research into synthetic Unobtanium purely so they can continue the hideously expensive task of mining it from Pandora, a whole star-system away, the RDA elite is bringing home alien fish and flowers as high-status luxury objects while also researching the possibilities of Pandoran flora in bio-reclamation to rescue earths biosphere from pollution, while also for some reason, repressing the same research.
The vast array of Pandora flora with possible bio-reclamation properties does strongly tilt me towards my 'Pandoran Invasion of Earth' theory, in which the Avatar series ends with Earth hosting varied forms of altered Pandoran life which ends up uniting into their own 'Eywa' entity.
All in all an excellent, and impressive, example of detailed (relatively) hard sci-fi worldbuilding - the enormous focus dedicated to Na'vi textiles, tools and crafts is impressive. It still sounds kind of boring to be a Na'vi though - mainly you just hunter-gather and tell stories of Ey'wa and the Balance?
I am not sure Hexipedal limbs make real sense on any of these creatures but if they are there, then surely the Na'vi should also be six-titted Hexipedes? Hopefully someone online has done some impressions of this.
A metatextual 'pleasure' of these films for me has always been the abhorrence and hatred for corporatism, militarism and technology of the _story_, combined with the obvious and intense adoration of these things on the part of the creators of the imagined world, it reminds me a lot of the alleged letter Milton received half way through the publication of Paradise Lost, from some country Squire; "I'm not sure who this Lucifer fellow is, but by gad I hope he wins." The 'Activist Survival Guide' sits right in the pressure crack of these ideas - its almost calling out for some Cyberpunk post-future film to be made about Pro-pandoran Biohackers doing shenanigans on Earth.
Superluminal communications and an apparent 'psionic' element to the Avatar link are interesting, almost the only soft science elements of this hard sci-fi world.
O and the 'Slinger' is some lovely creature-creation.
December 11, 2025
"Dollar for dollar, we've bought our extinction" well what can i say this is a report and not a book with a storyline but for avatar fans who (like me) want to know more about every beautiful aspect of Pandora then i think this was really well done
January 2, 2022
I loved the detail of the world of Pandora in the movie, so I wanted to read this book to get more history and details on the species of the planet. The sections on the Na'vi and Pandora's flora and fauna were great, but there was also sections on weapons and vehicles and the human-oriented stuff, which wasn't that interesting. If you're someone who knows weapons, they have immense detail about parts, manufacturers, and there's a whole backstory there that I don't think ever even comes up in the movie. The book itself is setup as a sort of secret report, which was cool in a way, but I guess I was hoping a bit more for something like 'the art of'. Given the fact that Pandora is a planet (well, moon) of its own, the number of flora and fauna covered seems rather minuscule in terms of what is actually there on the planet, and I think a more "art" style book may have been able to cover more.
January 29, 2021
Un libro que todo fan del mundo de Pandora tiene que tener en su colección. Contiene todo tipo de información interesante del planeta tanto de aspectos científicos como de la flora y fauna para que conozcamos y entendamos los diferentes elementos. Además, también hay datos sobre la RDA (tanto de armas como de máquinas que se usan allí) que nos hacen conocerlos un poquito más y, a través de diversas anotaciones en algunas páginas vamos viendo lo negativo de la RDA.
Para terminar, hay un pequeño glosario para entender el vocabulario (ya que hay elementos bastante complejos) e incluso un mini diccionario del idioma Na'vi.
Para terminar, hay un pequeño glosario para entender el vocabulario (ya que hay elementos bastante complejos) e incluso un mini diccionario del idioma Na'vi.
April 11, 2015
This book is a complete disappointment. The movie it is based on wasn't the greatest, but it was visually stunning and made ridiculous amounts of money and is spawning a whole trilogy of sequels, so I would think that they could produce a decent tie-in property. Sadly not the case. I had initially dismissed this book when I first heard about it, but when I recently found out about the book The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island which is a really good example of this sort of work, I was prompted to give this another try. Mostly I like books about aliens and monsters and unusual creatures, so the only chapter I fully read was the one on the fauna of Pandora. I also read most of the chapters that proceeded it, the intro, about the world and the Na'vi. Skimmed the sections on flora and the human technology a bit.
Thoughts and complaints:
- The art is bad, almost all at the level of a sketch rather than full art. But sketches can be interesting, and this is actually poorly rendered CG art and speed painting-like drawings. And the composition is sloppy in general: on page 34 there is a picture whose foreground is part of an image from page 26, but flipped horizontally and cut off, and the image of tetrapterons in flight appears to actually be a picture of flying stingbats, though the general low quality of the art makes it hard to say for sure
- Slingers are stupid and make no sense; if they really only have one offspring, they would rapidly become extinct since accident or predation would ensure that not all animals reached maturity; this issue could easily be fixed by saying that the slinger stores gametes after mating and can selectively bring them to maturity (not unknown in the real animal kingdom I believe) so that when one "head" matures, another takes it place; that no one thought of this fix shows their idiocy or at least glaring oversight in inventing this world
- Unobtanium (besides being an idiotic name) is a catch-22 as described in this work: if it provides the basis for the advanced technology humans need in space travel (and which was "unobtainable"), how did they reach Pandora in the first place?
- the general presentation of the book is dumb; why couldn't it have just been a straightforward guide to the planet and its biosphere? I absolutely loathe the "narrator"/commentator of the book who is a combination of starry-eyed hippie idiot with no sense of how the economic world works (corporations produce stuff that people want or even need, so blame for pollution and similar consequences is a diffuse thing, implicating all people that participate in a technological society), and paranoid survivalist idiot (why would the evil megacorp send attack helicopters after "resistance fighters" who are merely disaffected environmentalists living in dense urban settlements on Earth?); it is the same tone as the movie's dull, simplistic moralizing that helped make it such a mediocre film
- the Na'vi-English dictionary at the back is unusable since it doesn't include any sort of guide to pronunciation, and Na'vi includes a number of unusual features; also, without an English-Na'vi dictionary, it is really hard to find useful words. Also the Na'vi names for things throughout the book are really inconsistent; sometimes they provide the literal transaltion, sometimes it is just a string of words with no knowable meaning (since they aren't included in the dictionary) and the frequently have ridiculously long and complex words for fairly simple things
- I do like asymmetry of the Na'vi bows, and I find the strange compound structures interesting; many have secondary arms that presumably provide extra pull and I wonder if such structures would work
- Overall the impression that I get from the book is that the Na'vi and all of the organisms of Pandora are artificial; it is the only explanation that makes sense. Possibly it is the classic idea of an experiment by superpowerful unknowable aliens, but I have another hypothesis that I find more plausible: the Na'vi were once more advanced and Pandora is a sort of retirement planet they engineered for themselves, either as a whole race or just a faction within it that wanted to "return to nature". But they didn't want to give up all the comforts of advanced technology, so they designed the animals to be controllable through special neural interfaces, created a world-wide organic internet, and generally modified or created things to either be useful, or merely to fit their whims as something interesting. The only question is if the Na'vi are truly "primitive" or if they retain knowledge of their true origins. And if they are unaware, has this happened according to plan, or did the carefully designed ecology go rogue at some point? Frankly I think this theory does a much better job of explaining why the Na'vi are so distinct from other organisms, and why everything works so neatly. On the one hand, I sort of think something like this could show up in one of the sequels, but on the other hand it completely flies in the face of the insultingly simplistic, back-to-nature/noble savage ideology of the movie so it is probably unlikely.
Thoughts and complaints:
- The art is bad, almost all at the level of a sketch rather than full art. But sketches can be interesting, and this is actually poorly rendered CG art and speed painting-like drawings. And the composition is sloppy in general: on page 34 there is a picture whose foreground is part of an image from page 26, but flipped horizontally and cut off, and the image of tetrapterons in flight appears to actually be a picture of flying stingbats, though the general low quality of the art makes it hard to say for sure
- Slingers are stupid and make no sense; if they really only have one offspring, they would rapidly become extinct since accident or predation would ensure that not all animals reached maturity; this issue could easily be fixed by saying that the slinger stores gametes after mating and can selectively bring them to maturity (not unknown in the real animal kingdom I believe) so that when one "head" matures, another takes it place; that no one thought of this fix shows their idiocy or at least glaring oversight in inventing this world
- Unobtanium (besides being an idiotic name) is a catch-22 as described in this work: if it provides the basis for the advanced technology humans need in space travel (and which was "unobtainable"), how did they reach Pandora in the first place?
- the general presentation of the book is dumb; why couldn't it have just been a straightforward guide to the planet and its biosphere? I absolutely loathe the "narrator"/commentator of the book who is a combination of starry-eyed hippie idiot with no sense of how the economic world works (corporations produce stuff that people want or even need, so blame for pollution and similar consequences is a diffuse thing, implicating all people that participate in a technological society), and paranoid survivalist idiot (why would the evil megacorp send attack helicopters after "resistance fighters" who are merely disaffected environmentalists living in dense urban settlements on Earth?); it is the same tone as the movie's dull, simplistic moralizing that helped make it such a mediocre film
- the Na'vi-English dictionary at the back is unusable since it doesn't include any sort of guide to pronunciation, and Na'vi includes a number of unusual features; also, without an English-Na'vi dictionary, it is really hard to find useful words. Also the Na'vi names for things throughout the book are really inconsistent; sometimes they provide the literal transaltion, sometimes it is just a string of words with no knowable meaning (since they aren't included in the dictionary) and the frequently have ridiculously long and complex words for fairly simple things
- I do like asymmetry of the Na'vi bows, and I find the strange compound structures interesting; many have secondary arms that presumably provide extra pull and I wonder if such structures would work
- Overall the impression that I get from the book is that the Na'vi and all of the organisms of Pandora are artificial; it is the only explanation that makes sense. Possibly it is the classic idea of an experiment by superpowerful unknowable aliens, but I have another hypothesis that I find more plausible: the Na'vi were once more advanced and Pandora is a sort of retirement planet they engineered for themselves, either as a whole race or just a faction within it that wanted to "return to nature". But they didn't want to give up all the comforts of advanced technology, so they designed the animals to be controllable through special neural interfaces, created a world-wide organic internet, and generally modified or created things to either be useful, or merely to fit their whims as something interesting. The only question is if the Na'vi are truly "primitive" or if they retain knowledge of their true origins. And if they are unaware, has this happened according to plan, or did the carefully designed ecology go rogue at some point? Frankly I think this theory does a much better job of explaining why the Na'vi are so distinct from other organisms, and why everything works so neatly. On the one hand, I sort of think something like this could show up in one of the sequels, but on the other hand it completely flies in the face of the insultingly simplistic, back-to-nature/noble savage ideology of the movie so it is probably unlikely.
March 15, 2021
A really fun read for anyone who is obsessed with the Avatar movie or the concept of Pandora. I had more fun in the beginning when it was covering the Navi people and the wildlife, less fun when it changed to the plants and the human's ruining everything. However it was definitely a fun little guide and I can't wait for the next time we watch the movie to see if I can spot anything I've read about!
February 17, 2018
Perused this as background for an upcoming trip to Disney’s Pandora section, and it was adequate as a brief background. But it felt way too overdone - to make a field guide for something completely fictional could be fun, but it felt fake instead. Worth flipping through but not a keeper.
March 8, 2024
Okay, so this is an extremely high 3.5 stars, almost 4. I actually really enjoyed it more than I was expecting! There is obviously chapters I liked more than others, like the chapter dedicated to the Na'vi and their culture, and the chapter about the Fauna of pandora. But overall I really liked it.
September 2, 2024
4.5 ⭐️
petition to make all physics & science school books this format. i feel like i learned sooo much from this!
it brought me back to my childhood, when i would DEVOUR encyclopaedias about dinosaurs or anatomy or crystals.
petition to make all physics & science school books this format. i feel like i learned sooo much from this!
it brought me back to my childhood, when i would DEVOUR encyclopaedias about dinosaurs or anatomy or crystals.
March 21, 2019
The oddities of fictional biology intrigued me, but I find that the reports are lacking in detail. It's not a particularly long book, and worth a browse.
June 7, 2020
A fun, informative book about the fictional world of Pandora.
I can't believe that some people still say that Avatar has bad worldbuilding.
I can't believe that some people still say that Avatar has bad worldbuilding.
January 10, 2026
Mostly a gimmick book
October 24, 2022
yeah, i’m pretty much always a sucker for these “nonfiction”-style books about franchises i like. i devoured all the star wars essential guides back in the day, and a lot of the star trek equivalents.
i do have two substantial complaints, though. first, the book repeatedly mentions “overpopulation” on earth, and it’s just… look, i know you’ve heard this a bunch of times if you read much of my writing, but i’m gonna say it again: it’s not a thing. it’s just not.
i’m sorry to be a broken record here, but this is what happens when people without a solid grounding in dialectical materialism and political theory try to make a statement about environmentalism. much of the blame is rightly placed on big corporations, but you’re still swallowing wholesale their incredibly racist & misanthropic explanations for environmental degradation and making it a “personal responsibility” thing.
this doesn’t just come up in the parts of the book that specifically refer to earth, by the way. the book says that part of why the na’vi are more “in balance” with nature is because they have a nearly equal birthrate and deathrate, and just… no, guys. that’s not how this works. that’s not how any of this works.
my second major complaint is that there is just so much binary gender essentialism and compulsory heterosexuality on display in this book’s presentation of na’vi culture. it strains credulity that a culture like the na’vi would include either of these features.
this is actually not the most surprising thing to me, though, because it’s extremely similar to some of the things i’ve run into as a baby witch/neopagan. what cameron & co are doing in creating the na’vi doesn’t seem all that dissimilar to me to what a lot of neopagan pioneers did in establishing the tenets of the various mainstream branches of neopaganism. it is for sure a bit counterintuitive and frustrating to see such obvious reproductions of the wrong thinking that these people absorbed from white, western, largely christian culture in people and groups that are intentionally trying to break with that culture, but at least they’re trying i guess? but you still see these sorts of ridiculously rigid, binarist ideas about “natural” gender in a lot of the most popular and well-known neopagan groups.
i love, love, love the detail that some lifeforms on pandora have characteristics of both plants and animals, and that biologists and botanists “must reassess their preconceptions about the mechanics of life.” a book more solidly grounded in theory would likely add that this speaks to the fact that many “scientific,” “natural” categorizations that are often taken for granted are themselves socially constructed, informed by the ideologies of the cultures that develop them.
this is less a criticism, and more just an amused observation, but it’s kind of hilarious that this book decries the commoditization of na’vi culture and then goes on to describe basically exactly what you can find at the gift shop in pandora: the world of avatar? and i know it’s different when you’re not talking about an actual culture, but the na’vi are so similar to so many actual earth cultures in a lot of ways, so i still feel deeply uncomfortable about the idea of buying like… probably a good 75% of the goods on offer at those giftshops. and, again, this does remind me an awful lot of how i feel sometimes in new age/neopagan shops/etc (though in that case it’s even worse because it is explicitly white people making money off of the appropriation of actual, existing cultures on earth).
you might think i’m asking for a lot from a silly movie tie-in book, and you’re probably right, but this is a franchise that’s trying to appeal to people not just as a big, dumb action/scifi franchise, but also as a franchise that wants to Say Stuff, so i don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask it to do better if that’s the road it wants to travel down.
i’ve spent a lot of time talking about this book’s shortcomings even though they are pretty nitpicky at the end of the day, because there just happens to be a lot more to say about them? like, i do really like this book, honestly! it’s just, all there there really is to say about that is that it’s a really cool book about a really cool world. i like the way it’s formatted, as already mentioned i love these “nonfiction”-style supplemental books about scifi worlds, and i really do like the world of avatar. so despite my complaints, this book really is right up my alley.
***
check out part 1 of my megareview of the avatar franchise on my blog 24,000 miles to the moon! https://24000milestothemoon.blogspot....
i do have two substantial complaints, though. first, the book repeatedly mentions “overpopulation” on earth, and it’s just… look, i know you’ve heard this a bunch of times if you read much of my writing, but i’m gonna say it again: it’s not a thing. it’s just not.
i’m sorry to be a broken record here, but this is what happens when people without a solid grounding in dialectical materialism and political theory try to make a statement about environmentalism. much of the blame is rightly placed on big corporations, but you’re still swallowing wholesale their incredibly racist & misanthropic explanations for environmental degradation and making it a “personal responsibility” thing.
this doesn’t just come up in the parts of the book that specifically refer to earth, by the way. the book says that part of why the na’vi are more “in balance” with nature is because they have a nearly equal birthrate and deathrate, and just… no, guys. that’s not how this works. that’s not how any of this works.
my second major complaint is that there is just so much binary gender essentialism and compulsory heterosexuality on display in this book’s presentation of na’vi culture. it strains credulity that a culture like the na’vi would include either of these features.
this is actually not the most surprising thing to me, though, because it’s extremely similar to some of the things i’ve run into as a baby witch/neopagan. what cameron & co are doing in creating the na’vi doesn’t seem all that dissimilar to me to what a lot of neopagan pioneers did in establishing the tenets of the various mainstream branches of neopaganism. it is for sure a bit counterintuitive and frustrating to see such obvious reproductions of the wrong thinking that these people absorbed from white, western, largely christian culture in people and groups that are intentionally trying to break with that culture, but at least they’re trying i guess? but you still see these sorts of ridiculously rigid, binarist ideas about “natural” gender in a lot of the most popular and well-known neopagan groups.
i love, love, love the detail that some lifeforms on pandora have characteristics of both plants and animals, and that biologists and botanists “must reassess their preconceptions about the mechanics of life.” a book more solidly grounded in theory would likely add that this speaks to the fact that many “scientific,” “natural” categorizations that are often taken for granted are themselves socially constructed, informed by the ideologies of the cultures that develop them.
this is less a criticism, and more just an amused observation, but it’s kind of hilarious that this book decries the commoditization of na’vi culture and then goes on to describe basically exactly what you can find at the gift shop in pandora: the world of avatar? and i know it’s different when you’re not talking about an actual culture, but the na’vi are so similar to so many actual earth cultures in a lot of ways, so i still feel deeply uncomfortable about the idea of buying like… probably a good 75% of the goods on offer at those giftshops. and, again, this does remind me an awful lot of how i feel sometimes in new age/neopagan shops/etc (though in that case it’s even worse because it is explicitly white people making money off of the appropriation of actual, existing cultures on earth).
you might think i’m asking for a lot from a silly movie tie-in book, and you’re probably right, but this is a franchise that’s trying to appeal to people not just as a big, dumb action/scifi franchise, but also as a franchise that wants to Say Stuff, so i don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask it to do better if that’s the road it wants to travel down.
i’ve spent a lot of time talking about this book’s shortcomings even though they are pretty nitpicky at the end of the day, because there just happens to be a lot more to say about them? like, i do really like this book, honestly! it’s just, all there there really is to say about that is that it’s a really cool book about a really cool world. i like the way it’s formatted, as already mentioned i love these “nonfiction”-style supplemental books about scifi worlds, and i really do like the world of avatar. so despite my complaints, this book really is right up my alley.
***
check out part 1 of my megareview of the avatar franchise on my blog 24,000 miles to the moon! https://24000milestothemoon.blogspot....
January 5, 2010
Avatar: An Activist Survival Guide, by Maria Wilhelm and Dirk Mathison
Written as a survival guide for Pandora, this book provides in-depth information on the flora, fauna, and Na'vi people on the moon, as well as details on the human weaponry and military vehicles imported from Earth. The plant and animal descriptions include classifications, Latin names, ecology, pictures, and their use on Pandora, as well as possible uses on Earth. The information on the Na'vi people tells about their customs, culture, and how they live. There's also some pseudo-scientific explanations for the formation of Pandora and its inhabitants.
"Avatar: An Activist Survival Guide" is full of beautiful glossy photos and is a good companion for the movie. While I haven't seen Avatar yet, I'm more eager to after reading this book, as there are things I'll probably look for in the movie now. This seems like the perfect book for anyone who is really into Pandora and the Na'vi, or maybe someone curious about something specific, such as Na'vi mating habits.
One of my few complaints for this book is the design of the pages. While the pages are designed to look like crumpled paper, going with the survival guide/smuggled information theme, it does make it difficult to read the text. If the gray of the pages were a little lighter I think the text would be easier to read. Otherwise, it feels as if a lot of time and thought went into the appearance of the book, and the visuals are very nice.
3/5.
Written as a survival guide for Pandora, this book provides in-depth information on the flora, fauna, and Na'vi people on the moon, as well as details on the human weaponry and military vehicles imported from Earth. The plant and animal descriptions include classifications, Latin names, ecology, pictures, and their use on Pandora, as well as possible uses on Earth. The information on the Na'vi people tells about their customs, culture, and how they live. There's also some pseudo-scientific explanations for the formation of Pandora and its inhabitants.
"Avatar: An Activist Survival Guide" is full of beautiful glossy photos and is a good companion for the movie. While I haven't seen Avatar yet, I'm more eager to after reading this book, as there are things I'll probably look for in the movie now. This seems like the perfect book for anyone who is really into Pandora and the Na'vi, or maybe someone curious about something specific, such as Na'vi mating habits.
One of my few complaints for this book is the design of the pages. While the pages are designed to look like crumpled paper, going with the survival guide/smuggled information theme, it does make it difficult to read the text. If the gray of the pages were a little lighter I think the text would be easier to read. Otherwise, it feels as if a lot of time and thought went into the appearance of the book, and the visuals are very nice.
3/5.
February 24, 2013
OK, one might say, that I fell into a merchandising trap, when buying this, but I openly admit, that the movie "Avatar" did touch something inside me, that goes beyond the action and effects of a typical James Cameron film.
This book is the "field guide" to the fictional world of Pandora, and despite being part of a money-making machine here on Earth, it's filled with criticism of consumerism, ecocide and the deadened feelings of the inhabitants of a dying world (in this case, our own Earth in a near future).
The introduction is entitled "Warning", since the book is written as being an illegal field guide, comprised of smuggled notes for possible activists wanting to change what Earth has become - or might become in the future, if we don't act now.
Here's the beginning of it, sounding eerily current and very familiar today already:
"The armies of greed lay waste to the Earth and all its creatures. In our hunger for energy - for more and more - we've devastated our planet. We're neck-deep in festering industrial muck, in a trash heap of ever-expanding waste and decay. Overpopulation, overdevelopment, nuclear terrorism, environmental warfare, radiation leaks from power plants and waste dumps, toxic runoff, air pollution, deforestation, global warming, ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity through extinction... our once blue-green and beauteous Earth is now a terminal cesspool - an oozing wound cut deep into the face of the universe. Dollar for dollar, we've bought our extinction."
This book is the "field guide" to the fictional world of Pandora, and despite being part of a money-making machine here on Earth, it's filled with criticism of consumerism, ecocide and the deadened feelings of the inhabitants of a dying world (in this case, our own Earth in a near future).
The introduction is entitled "Warning", since the book is written as being an illegal field guide, comprised of smuggled notes for possible activists wanting to change what Earth has become - or might become in the future, if we don't act now.
Here's the beginning of it, sounding eerily current and very familiar today already:
"The armies of greed lay waste to the Earth and all its creatures. In our hunger for energy - for more and more - we've devastated our planet. We're neck-deep in festering industrial muck, in a trash heap of ever-expanding waste and decay. Overpopulation, overdevelopment, nuclear terrorism, environmental warfare, radiation leaks from power plants and waste dumps, toxic runoff, air pollution, deforestation, global warming, ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity through extinction... our once blue-green and beauteous Earth is now a terminal cesspool - an oozing wound cut deep into the face of the universe. Dollar for dollar, we've bought our extinction."
December 27, 2012
An encyclopedic collection of facts about Pandora, its various flora and fauna, the Na'vi culture and the RDA technology, written from an in-universe point-of-view (so there is no information on the making of the Avatar movie) and set shortly before the movie events. There are a lot of images in this book, most of which seem to be concept models and sketches, only very few are movie stills. The images are not very large or clear. There's also a Na'vi to English dictionary included at the end (although without any notes on pronunciation or grammar, and a Na'vi translation of the phrase 'I see you' is not included either). I also would have liked more detailed information about avatars. I'd recommend this to someone who has already seen the movie, as it will contain spoilers for those that didn't, and who is interested in learning more about the life on Pandora. Especially recommended to those who have seen only the theatrical version, as it contains some images and information on Jake's Earth.
BTW, my copy (first printing of the UK paperback edition) contained quite a few typos.
BTW, my copy (first printing of the UK paperback edition) contained quite a few typos.
September 8, 2013
Люблю я такие вещи - своего рода энциклопедии по описываему миру. Я, к примеру, совсем не играю в компьютерные игры, зато я очень люблю смотреть все, что к этим играм прилагается - карты, вступительные ролики, разбор оружия, героев, сюжета и т.п. В этой книжке рассказывается о флоре и фауне Пандоры, о том, как началось ее освоение людьми, что за анобтаний они там разрабатывают и почему он так важен для Земли, рассказывается о быте На'ви и вообще тех вещах, которые ты видишь в фильме, но не знаешь, для чего это нужно и как оно устроено. И красивые фотографии. Правда, мне попалась книжечка сия не на глянцевой финской бумаге, что прискорбно, и фотографии все, конечно, не столь прекрасны, как могли бы быть. Но все равно, было интересно. Особенно феномен парящих гор.
March 2, 2010
I found this book to be amazing, its written like a field guide as well as a survival guide and details not only the flora, fauna, and the planet but also the RDA's equipment, as well as the Na'vi's musical instruments, garments and other things that they craft. It contains quite a few pieces of information on things that you saw in the movie for maybe just a few seconds but describes their uses, dangers and benefits they may have to a dying earth in great detail. The only disappointing thing i found in the book was there are a couple of things missing, such as their home tree, and some equipment the RDA uses but these are easily found on Pandorapedia (If your a die hard fan).
July 17, 2010
An in-depth look at the people, flora, fauna, and human existence on the moon Pandora.
Avatar wasn't my favorite movie, but I did enjoy reading about the different types of animal and plant species on Pandora and their uses. The most boring part was definitely reading about the types of weapons used by the humans on the Na'vi natives. I would have preferred not to know about any of that, but I understand it's a vital part of why the humans were on the moon to begin with.
Overall, it was a very nice, fast read.
Avatar wasn't my favorite movie, but I did enjoy reading about the different types of animal and plant species on Pandora and their uses. The most boring part was definitely reading about the types of weapons used by the humans on the Na'vi natives. I would have preferred not to know about any of that, but I understand it's a vital part of why the humans were on the moon to begin with.
Overall, it was a very nice, fast read.
October 29, 2010
AVATAR
BY MERIA WILHELM, DIRK MATHISON
Avatar gives an interesting look on the world of Pandora and its people the Na’ve and the animals that live there. It explains the life of the Na’ve and how they live. It also explains the technology that humans used to survive and move around on the land of Pandora. The last thing it explores the many animals that live there. I recommend this book to that liked the movie and want to learn about Pandora and what lives on it.
BY MERIA WILHELM, DIRK MATHISON
Avatar gives an interesting look on the world of Pandora and its people the Na’ve and the animals that live there. It explains the life of the Na’ve and how they live. It also explains the technology that humans used to survive and move around on the land of Pandora. The last thing it explores the many animals that live there. I recommend this book to that liked the movie and want to learn about Pandora and what lives on it.
March 30, 2010
I was extremely impressed with the film; not just the visual beauty and the technology behind it but also the fascinating world which was created by James Cameron. This book will satisfy my curiosity about Pandora, its flora and fauna and the Na'vi. Still, it's one of those books which is to be read in short bursts while taking one's "ease."
January 17, 2011
Really not for adults, nor for just someone who enjoyed the movie. This is for either die hard fans or young adults, in my opinion. The repetitive writing, great deal of focus on weapons and machinery, along with the fantasy put into the whole thing really ends up being quite boring. In the end, frankly one learns less about the Navi and more about the boring elements from the film.
February 3, 2013
A fantastic but quite hard to find companion to the beautiful blockbuster by James Cameron.
An amazingly detailed book that can be easily read cover-to-cover or as a flick through guide to the beautiful but deadly Pandora. With colourful pictures and in-depth descriptions this brilliant book is a must for all Avatar fans. 5 stars!
An amazingly detailed book that can be easily read cover-to-cover or as a flick through guide to the beautiful but deadly Pandora. With colourful pictures and in-depth descriptions this brilliant book is a must for all Avatar fans. 5 stars!
September 11, 2013
This book expands upon Avatar. Unlike some other Science Fiction, all of the details in this book conform to modern scientific theories. It's amazing how much thought went into it, it is written like an ecological tour book for a real place with real scientific explanations for phenomena in an imaginary world.
January 19, 2010
It's not much of a read, its a great way to reveal the facts of the movie Avatar and like what its called, it explains on how you would Survive on Pandora, along with a short dictionary of the Na'Vi language
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